COP26: World Leaders Launch Global Negotiations to Save Humanity

By Chiemelie Ezeobi

As part of effort to save humanity from looming effects of climate change, about 120 leaders came together in Glasgow, Scotland, yesterday to launch two weeks of global negotiations to help determine and drive forward an urgent action.

This was the crux of discussions at the World Leaders Summit at the ongoing Climate Change Conference (COP26), where major emitting countries met face to face with countries most vulnerable to climate change.

According to the global leaders, an urgent action had become imperative especially as the world has begun to experience record temperatures and extreme weather, which has pushed the planet dangerously close to the precipe.

COP26 President Alok Sharma called for immediate action and solidarity to ensure Glasgow delivers on the promise of Paris.

According to Sharma: “The science is clear that the window of time we have to keep the goal of 1.5℃ alive , and to avoid the worst effects of climate change, is closing fast. But with political will and commitment, we can, and must, deliver an outcome in Glasgow the world can be proud of.”

Campaigner and Kenyan environment and climate activist, Elizabeth Wathuti said: “We need you to respond with courage to the climate and ecological crisis…for these next two weeks – which are so critical for the children, for our species, for so many other living beings – let us step into our hearts.”

Also leading the charge, Yrsa Daley-Ward, a poet, whose specially commissioned poem Earth to COP includes the lines: “Anything less than your best is too much to pay. Anything later than now, too little, too late. Nothing will change without you”, addressed the delegates.

Meanwhile, UK Prime Minister, Boris Johnson announced a funding package as part of the UK’s Clean Green Initiative, to support the rollout of sustainable infrastructure and revolutionary green technology in developing countries.

The package includes guarantees to the World Bank and the African Development Bank to provide £2.2 billion ($3 billion) for investments in climate-related projects in India, supporting India’s target to achieve 450 GW of renewable energy installed capacity by 2030, and across Africa.

Also, the UK’s development finance institution, CDC, would commit to deliver more than £3 billion of climate financing for green growth over the next five years.

This, he said would include £200 million for a new Climate Innovation Facility to support the scale-up of technologies that would help communities deal with the impacts of climate change, which is double the amount of climate finance CDC invested in its previous strategy period from 2017-2021.

Also, the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office-backed Private Infrastructure Development Group (PIDG) would also commit more than £210m in new investment today (Monday) to back transformational green projects in developing countries such as Vietnam, Burkina Faso, Pakistan, Nepal and Chad.

In a related development, climate justice civil society groups in Africa yesterday issued a position paper urging political leaders from the continent attending the COP26 to advance climate solutions. This, they said would be targeted at building resilience of African communities with a view to demonstrate commitment for the continent’s fair share of global climate change action.

This is just as over 725 groups from nearly 100 countries including 130 African organisations also issued a statement calling on governments and leading international institutions to end reliance on “Net Zero” promises and commit to specific, ambitious, and immediate actions to bring emissions and fossil fuel production down to Real Zero, consistent with science and equity.

According to the groups, it was pertinent to state their stance as countries’ delegations begin to tout Net Zero pledges premised on mid-century emissions targets, offset-based carbon accounting tricks, and illusory and dangerous technologies like carbon capture, blue hydrogen, and bioenergy.

Such pledges, the statement noted, masked climate inaction and provide cover for business-as-usual fossil fuel production that spells planetary destruction.

Proponents of the demands insisted that so-called solution that enable Big Polluters to buy more room to continue to emit only binds people, especially in the poor regions like Africa, into decades of more devastation.

According to Corporate Accountability, Director of Climate Campaign for Africa, Hellen Neima, “after weakening the Paris Agreement, polluting governments and corporations are burying real solutions that stop emissions at source in favor of empty promises disguised by the catchy ‘net zero’ slogan.

“Fortunately, this big con has been exposed for the scam that it is. Governments at COP26- especially Global North governments- need to stop condemning the world and heed the demands of the people by committing to real solutions and Real Zero right now.”

Also, Director of Health of Mother Earth Foundation, Nnimmo Bassey said:“The polluting rich countries and corporations are fully on ground in Glasgow to promote their Net zero scam which will only bolster corporate power and further delay the urgent actions needed to address the climate crisis.”

The joint statement further noted that Africa contributed and still contributes insignificantly to the current climate crisis yet is the most adversely affected by its consequences.

“It will only be strategic for the governments of the continent to project a harmonised position and engage the discussions with a ‘common language’ premised on uniform climate actions that won’t compromise each nation’s peculiarities,” they posited.

They also urged African governments attending the COP to, “Challenge and reject pledges made by polluting corporations and governments to achieve “net zero” emissions, which are being used to shift additional burdens onto the African region and avoid responsibility for their role in the global share of emissions to-date; commit to achieving Real Zero emissions reductions, embracing the concept of equity (each country does their fair share); and reject industry-driven attempts to ram through rules enshrining market mechanisms into the center of Paris Agreement implementation, via the guidelines for Article 6.2 and 6.4 of the Paris Agreement.

“Governments across the region must come up with real climate change plans (adaptation and mitigation) and reflect the same in their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs); secure concrete outcomes advancing policies to implement real solutions via Article 6.8 of the Paris Agreement; advancing a strong argument to commit industrialised and wealthy countries to provide adequate climate financing for the implementation of its adaptation and mitigation plans; and ensure that the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) of African countries are independent of false solutions and corporations’ influences, but rather accommodates workable and home-grown climate solutions on mitigation and adaptations.”